April 15, 2000

Jellys : Ship goes down

Not to be confused with other totally shit retro power-pop bands

Now Rowntrees have recently claimed that they intend to downsize, wind down, de-scale and eventually terminate their jelly production with extreme prejudice 'cos no-one can be arsed making it any more. Some pundits responded to this tragic news with cynicism. They pointed out that Heinz Salad Cream and Subbuteo were also similarly threatened with extinction recently. Cue tons of pathetically nostalgic free publicity and bish-bash-bosh - due to a sudden upsurge in demand, the product is not only 'saved' but repackaged and relaunched to a supposedly relieved and grateful public.

The good news is that the pop band The Jellys aren't in any way threatened by the increasing popularity of ready-made dessert products. The bad news is that no bugger's ever heard of them. So, to increase their brand differential, The Jellys wear dog collars and gurly mascara so you can tell them apart from other pop bands like Steps and Five and Embrace who don't. And they sound like The Rembrandts, the band who did the Friends theme tune who sound like The Knack who sounded like The Cars who sounded like The Pleasers who sounded like The Beatles only rubbish. So that's The Jellys then. Not to be confused with other totally shit retro power-pop bands. No, totally different.

Steven Wells